


In the Bleak Midwinter

by NorthernRose



Series: The Poor Wren, Will Fight [2]
Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Angst, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, F/M, Healing, Implied/Referenced Abuse, Jon Snow and Sansa Stark Are Not Related, Jon Snow and the Starks Are Not Related, Past Abuse, Sansa is having her eat/prey/love moment but in a much colder place, Scotland, Therapy, Winter, and with less gelato, reference to past relationships
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-01-10
Updated: 2020-01-17
Packaged: 2021-02-18 22:14:37
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,671
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22200676
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NorthernRose/pseuds/NorthernRose
Summary: Work title is taken from the poem of the same name, by the English poet Christina Rossetti.Series title is an adaptation of a quote taken from William Shakespeare's Scottish play.*She misses him. It’s a quiet ache, one she keeps hidden, deep in her chest, but it lingers, blooming like the dusky purple flowers of the winter heather that paves the lands she has escaped to. She has tried to supress it, pretend she doesn’t feel that way, that she has no need of Jon Snow and his sweet words and gentle touch, but she should have known better, you cannot stop the blossoming wild heather of the Highlands if that’s where it chooses to grow.
Relationships: Jon Snow/Sansa Stark, Robb Stark & Sansa Stark, Sansa Stark/Joffrey Baratheon (past), Theon Greyjoy & Sansa Stark
Series: The Poor Wren, Will Fight [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1598029
Comments: 15
Kudos: 48





	1. Heaven and Earth, shall flee.

**Author's Note:**

> I made a series, rejoice! 
> 
> Please, please, I must stress, that this piece will likely only make sense if you have read Christmas Lights, the first part of the series. 
> 
> I hope you enjoy Sansa's journey with me.

Theon, as it turns out, has become her best friend. Best friend sounds a little childish, certainly her closest, dearest confidant that she shares no blood relation with. Robb is… her darling, her sanity, her courage and her heart, but sometimes, he is just so… Robb.

Robb treats her with a reverence and sensibility that mirrors how she once treated her dolls. Robb idolises her, she knows this. When she came back into his life again after finally getting herself away from Joffrey, she was afraid he would never let her go. They’ve always been close, like twins almost. Her absence and the cruelty she suffered at Joffrey’s hands has only served to make him more protective. Robb may still be insufferable in a sarcastic and loveable way, but it can be suffocating all the same.

Theon, however, treats her like she is an anomaly, in a completely positive manner. He thinks she’s funny, hilarious even, with her dryness and her steely nature. He thinks she’s brave, and strong, even when she doesn’t feel it. Theon rains her good qualities down on her so often that she has started to listen. He thinks she’s beautiful too. She knows all of this, because he tells her. Frequently. Daily, sometimes. Only a fool wouldn’t want to hear such things.

She surmises that he feels this way about her because he has been in her metaphorical shoes. He has click-clacked his way to survival in her patent loafers, finding some form of normality at the end. _Survivors stick together_ , he told her that once, the first time he had seen her, blotchy, swollen, lonely, a shell of the person Sansa Stark had once been, he had then ruined the tender moment by breaking out into an awful rendition of Shakespeare’s St Crispin’s Day Speech from Henry V, in which he harked lyrical about how they were a _band of brothers_. He got it all wrong and his iambic pentameter was an insult to the English language, but she will never forget it. Then he had held her. Then they had cried together. It was lovely, in a heart breaking, fragile kind of way.

They have become fast friends. He visits her often, despite living in Canterbury, where he is doing his Masters. Theon gets in his battered mini cooper and turns up every few weeks, bottle of cheap Chenin Blanc counteracted by the sinfully indulgent box of dark chocolates in the other. He says he only visits because he loves the pub in her village and her cooking, she always sends him off with a casserole or something in a Tupperware box, but she knows he is there because he loves her, and she needs it, the normality of being around a man who wants nothing from her, well, maybe except the leftovers of lamb shanks a’la Sansa.

They rarely, if ever, talk about Joffrey, or as Theon has justly coined him, _He Who Must Not Be Named_. She appreciates the reference but thinks it slightly unfair on Lord Voldemort if you ask her. This then becomes a running challenge, to see how many Harry Potter references they can fit into their everyday conversation, she’s winning, as it currently stands. They talk about anything, nonsense really, as true friends do. She hasn’t had any friends of consequence in years. Joffrey saw to that. If you had asked her a month ago, she would have said she allowed him to drive them away, but she’s not as self-critical as she was in December, she still is a touch loathsome when she looks in the mirror, but she’s working on being better, and finds herself biting her cheek when she wants to give herself a tongue lashing.

They do however, especially when alcohol is involved, frequently laugh about the fact that Theon was the first boy she ever kissed, when she saw him as nothing other than Robb’s _mildly disgusting but gorgeous in a windswept, sea-foam, he might break your heart kind of way_ friend. They also scream, with tears tracking their cheeks about the fact that she desperately tried to sleep with him when she was about twenty, in her peak _Jon Snow will never want me_ stage. It’s ironic how things have changed. She’s glad now, they both are, that Theon gently turned her down.

It’s her new best friend Theon, incidentally, who suggests to her the trip she is currently packing for.

“You should get away Sans, January is shit, we all know it. Lucky for you, you can literally do your job anywhere.”

They had been discussing something she could do for herself, he thinks it will be good for her, this can be her _eat, prey, love_ moment. She feels slightly suffocated after Christmas and New Year. Her family mean well, they love her so much she thinks they could die from it, but that kind of adoration is hard to live up to, especially when she rarely feels worthy of Robb’s kindness, and Arya’s strength, and her parents, god bless them, her dear mama and papa, who are just so thankful she is alive, so much so that her mother didn’t even shout at her when she put the recycling in the wrong boxes over Christmas, and her father went Christmas shopping with her without a grumble of complaint.

So that’s how she finds herself packing up her car, route programmed into her sat nav, final destination set on her father’s house in the Cairngorms. It may be odd, to many, the freedom to go anywhere in the world, and she chooses the Highlands in Scotland, nearly as far north as north goes, but she has never felt peace like it then when she stood on the peaks of Ben Avon as a teenager, or ran through the twinkling streets of Aviemore on Hogmanay with ribbons in her hair as a girl. So that’s where she wants to be, the Caribbean will keep. England is her heart, but Scotland is her peace.

Her parents were concerned, when she asked if she could go, understandably so, since she has been missing in action from their lives for the last five years. She explains it as gently as she can. She will be back. Two weeks at the most. Deadlines for her publisher will demand her return anyway. She knows Theon is right, this will be good for her. So, she smiles prettily when she tells them all the things they need to hear, smiles even wider when she knows she is telling the truth.

_Yes, mama, I will eat. Yes papa, I have skype sessions arranged with Therapist Thatcher. No, I really, really, do not need you to come with me._

They understand. They always do. Her father says something about how _a wolf occasionally needs to leave the pack for a night to howl at the moon_ , which only makes her mother swipes his tea cup to see if his drink is of the _Irish variety_ and their laughter warms Sansa to the bones. Ned of course acquiesces, she knows he’s a little thrilled, when any of his children show interest in the Scottish side of their heritage, despite their distinctly English upbringing, he always puffs his chest a little. He hands the spare keys over with gusto, firm instructions on how to operate the log burner and where the fuse box is, because the electrics can be temperamental. She draws the line when he offers her some tartan to pack, much to his dismay. So, she begins her journey, thermos full of the good coffee she keeps for guests, a decent supply of Percy Pigs from Marks and Spencer’s in tow, sans her father’s ancestral kilt.

A smarter person would fly to Inverness. But she loves the drive, no matter how it has always taken her more than the ten hours Robb always manages it in from the South of England to the Highlands. She adores how the scenery changes around her. Britain, despite its small geographical size, often feels like twenty different countries as she travels its length. Yorkshire is her favourite, she loves the stone walls that feel like they’ve been there since the Norman Conquest, they likely have. She wonders if the road she drives on along the way was built by the Romans.

She left at 4am. She was desperate to be free from the M25 and she loves driving as the sun comes up, crisp and new, sun so bright in the wintery morning that its almost transparent, like stove-warmed milk and honey in a tea cup, in the way only a January sun can be. She often used to fantasise about leaving Joffrey, and how she would steal away in the early hours, fleeing with the moon, only to be greeted by the sun. But she’s not running now. She’s flying. She’s exactly where she wants to be.

She listens to podcasts she has saved for the journey, about intersectional feminism and then one on the wives of Henry VIII. They don’t relate, but she laughs at each in turn. She listens to Stormzy’s new album twice, all the way through, and hails it as a triumph, better even than the debut, to the air around her. Theon’s love of Grime music really is rubbing off on her.

Sansa stops several times and sends Robb her ratings out of ten on each Motorway Service she frequents, including breakdowns on conveniences and bonus points for if they have a Waitrose. Robb’s enthusiastic response in only GIF form makes her think he is rather enjoying her commentary.

She smiles, without a shed of guilt, as she crosses the border. _Welcome to Scotland._ The sign edging the roadside, fields of damp green beyond beckons her. It had been a game, when they travelled here as children, to see who could spot the sign first. The winner would be given a fiver in victory from their long-suffering father. Now the simple road sign shines at her, like the rueful grey of her sister’s eyes when she’s has some far-fetched idea for mischief and joy in her little head.

Hours later, in the late afternoon, Sansa crawls alone the pebbled driveway, up to the aptly named Winterfell, grey stone, rough worn, peace. Ned calls it their bolt hole, Catelyn tells their friends its their little holiday home. Neither is true. It’s heaven. Sansa happily cries in the driveway, breathing in the Scottish air that has no right to be that good in a world descending into climate environmental madness. She hasn’t been here for years. Since before. She had been Sansa back then, but she feels a little like Sansa now too.

Its moments before she’s inside, logs ablaze in the burner, radiators fired up and creaking in aged protest. Sansa finds her old room, her mother must have switched out the bunk beds her and Arya begrudgingly shared for a double. She’s immensely happy.

Sansa snaps a picture of the fireplace on her phone, happy little fire roaring, cheese and biscuits, grapes and chutneys on the table in front of it, nice glass of that Merlot she likes from the wine merchant in the village and sends the picture to anyone who would need the reassurance that she’s is ok.

She hasn’t run. It will do her nearest and dearest good to know that. It does Sansa good too.

**I made it. I’m ok. _Tha gaol agam ort_. **

She throws in the Gaelic for fun. _I love you._ Ned had taught them all the basics when the Stark children were little. Cat had grumbled that it was a dying language. She was glad her papa had persisted.

She sends it to her mother, father, Robb and Arya too. The boys are too young to care. She sends it to Theon, her mighty friend and avid supporter. She will email Therapist Thatcher, which she thinks is much more appropriate. And then… Jon. She sends her little text to Jon too. She wonders if he knows she’s come here, if Robb has told him yet, likely, but he’s giving her space. She’s giving it to him too. It’s all on her terms. She knows that’s likely not fair, but it’s the way it is right now. She’s eternally grateful for the space he has offered her in the last few weeks, since Robb had told her how Jon had always wanted her, how deeply he cared, and since she had kissed him on that dusky Christmas evening.

She hasn’t said a word to him since Boxing Day.

She misses him. It’s a quiet ache, one she keeps hidden, deep in her chest, but it lingers, blooming like the dusky purple flowers of the winter heather that paves the lands she has escaped to. She has tried to supress it, pretend she doesn’t feel that way, that she has no need of Jon Snow and his sweet words and gentle touch, but she should have known better, you cannot stop the blossoming wild heather of the Highlands if that’s where it chooses to grow.

Sansa has too much to do right now to involve Jon too heavily in her life. It’s a funny thing, knowing that she needs to get better, but not having a foggy how to go about it. She’s asked Therapist Thatcher about it, demanding, challenging; _how do I fix me?_ There isn’t a to-do list apparently, according to the all-seeing, pencil browed and hair sprayed, coiffed health professional. She has to find her own way.

Tonight, she isn’t going to do a thing. She sits in front of the fire, literally, on the antique rug that was a wedding gift to her parents from some distant relative, glass of wine in hand, fingers drumming up the stem. Pretty porcelain against crystal glass. She plans to eat her weight in cheese, chutney and biscuits, life’s sweetest winter treat. She’s going to do nothing else, but eat, rest and think. Yes, she needs to think.

Sansa doesn’t even intend to unpack her car tonight. She managed to drag out the small bag of groceries she picked up when passing through Inverness, some clothes and necessities, but her suitcase, laptop and books remain in the boot, there are even some gifts leftover from Christmas that are still in there, she hadn’t even unpacked them when she returned from her parents house on Boxing Day. She hadn’t been able to face opening them in front of everyone, its silly, but she doesn’t like the attention. There is something from Theon in there, its likely a gag gift, there is something from Jon too.

She told Robb she would come up with a plan, that if she could, she would share it with him, he needs to feel like he is doing good too, her darling brother continues to place so much blame on his own shoulders, and he is far to wonderful and young to be so weighed down by the actions of Joffrey Baratheon.

It’s taken a few months, but she knows she can ask for help, that people want to help, desperately so. So tonight, she’s going to think about the future, only the future, and about how she moves forward. Her solicitor and therapist are helping her deal with the past, she trusts them to do so, to prepare her for the challenges that are on the horizon, hailed by this New Year, so she will focus on what is to come instead.

She hasn’t felt this safe in a long time. She hasn’t felt this peaceful. It’s a magical feeling, to be alone, to be calm, with nothing but her Highland heart and her scattered thoughts for company. Not a sound in the evening air, except for the crackle of the log burner, as she happily coats her tongue with wine, warm and sweet, spreading brie and stilton on cracker after cracker. Nibbling. Drinking. Thinking.

She has come far, she realises in that moment. She has travelled the length of their fair isles quite alone, from the safety of her Kentish cottage, to the ancient hamlet in the Highlands, to be alone, utterly so, and she feels good about it. There was a time, not that long ago, where she would not leave the house without permission, not unless she was told to, when she was instructed, and only if the lack of bruising allowed it. Sitting in front of the hearth, in a house that is a couple hundred years old, weather hardened, as the January wind batters the stone walls outside, Sansa realises that the women who suffered Joffrey’s abuse for most of her twenties is quite far removed from the person she feels tonight. She’s a memory, that young woman, a striking, heart-breaking and very real memory, but all memories are in the past, and she only hopes that is where she will remain.

She sips at her wine once more. She’ll top up her glass again soon.

Her supply of cheese is slowly dwindling. She’ll buy some more tomorrow.

She ignores her phone, as it continues to light up with the happy responses from her family and the friend of her very own that she now has.

They are all choices, and Sansa’s making them.

Yes, she is quite content indeed.


	2. Frosty winds, made moan.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sansa seeks the joys of youth.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A small visual aid, of a place very dear to me, and many wanderers everywhere, I am sure:
> 
> https://www.instagram.com/p/BzqkoikDiMe/?igshid=1a8kyvq1v6ov

Sansa takes her own advice about doing absolutely nothing perhaps a bit too literally. That being said, she thinks there is quite a lot to be said about doing nothing, or as Robb prefers to call it, _doing_ _fuck all_. The first day of her self-imposed holiday down memory lane which she has affectionately coined as her highland-fling is awash with ghosts of her formative years, of a girl with dreams who no longer sleeps so sweetly on her pillow is spent thusly; she sleeps in, she writes all morning, her fingers tip-tapping her jagged thoughts and marbled threads of the hopes she once had as the words fly from her finger tips onto the laptop screen. She spends a grossly indulgent amount of time in the roll-top bath, with silver wolf heads on the taps, soaking in one of the bath bombs Arya got her for Christmas from Fortnum and Masons, its decadent and heavenly, spending all of a Tuesday afternoon in the bath. She loves it. She deserves this.

The second day is spent much the same. Robb would be proud of her commitment to her own laziness. The third and fourth day role by, aside from a short trip into the village to restock on necessities from the butcher, the baker and the candlestick maker (wine merchant), she has not left her walls of Winterfell. The rough stone, as grey as the January sky before rainfall, hard and bleak, such cold and lovely secrets it keeps, buried in ice and rock, just like her.

The repetitiveness of the last few days has been a comfort, and she tries not to think of anything negative. If and _not-so-shockingly_ when such thoughts creep into her brain, she counteracts it by writing down something positive about herself in the notepad Therapist Thatcher bid her to purchase, it’s a ghastly thing, pale pink, with an agonisingly saccharine quote on the front, some bullshit about _being a flamingo in a flock of arseholes_ , or something like that. She brought it on purpose for its cheesiness, Sansa always has been a glutton for punishment.

Therapist Thatcher will be pleased, the odious creature that she is, but Sansa cannot help the respect that has built between then. Sansa likes her, as much as you can like someone who is always bloody right. She’s flicked through the notepad every few days, the positive comments she jots about herself and her life are not as great in number as they were two months ago, and she takes that as a good sign, because she must not be thinking so negatively if she isn’t having to write down so much codswallop about how kind she is, or how good her nail beds are.

On the dawning of the fifth day of her highland-fling, a bright winters sun is gracing the mountainous peaks and valleys of the Cairngorms with its smile, or more of a sarcastic grin, ruefully judging her inactivity in Sansa’s opinion. The sun lights the sitting room, the posh one that no one normally uses, beams of gold kiss the mahogany table where her teacup lingers, steam dancing above it, entwined like lovers. She thinks up a metaphor about a the oldness of a winters sun on the dawning of a new day when she finally snaps her laptop closed and knows for certain that cabin fever has set in, and everything she has likely written for the last day is probably for the recycling bin.

Sansa knows what she wants to do today, knows what she must do, its been lingering in the back of her aching crown for days now, so she pulls on her ancient walking-boots, salt and snow stained, with a determination that would rival Catelyn Stark as she wrangled her wild children. She wraps herself in layers of thermals and fabric, having long ago been lectured by her father about the dangers of losing ones self to the elements, _the highlands are a flighty mistress, you must show her the respect she deserves_ Ned would tell them, and she’s fed up of letting her parents down, so she doesn’t plan on it today.

Sansa knows the trails and meandering pathways of all of the best, and most secretive places in the lands of her forefathers like the back of Ned Starks aged hands, she knows the best places to park, the best routes to take, and she soon finds herself locking her car and taking up the beat of the weather-worn path, with the rucksack on her back and the murmuring of the wind as her only guardian.

The sky is blue, such a brilliant colour, giants-eye blue, in only the way a January sky can be, crisp like a frozen leaf, spindles of ice-veins for clouds which are far and few in between. Her braid swings gentle behind her as she walks along the riverbank, the flow of the water bubbles and races her forward, as her siblings would, Arya on Robb’s back if they were here.

The ground is littered cold and heavy with the last remains of four-day old snowfall, left undisturbed by the elements it has frozen in time into clumps, thick drifts of ice, pale and hard, just like her. The trees rise above her, ancient, older than the kings and queens and lairds that have walked this very path, they are good company, her pine wrapped sentinels.

It’s safe, and calm, completely alone, with neither man nor beast around her. She walks for an hour before realising she hasn’t seen a soul as she journeys deeper along the path, further into the woodland. The river leaves her, coasting away, following its own path and she wishes it well on its way.

It’s so quiet, its lovely. The peacefulness she found back at Winterfell, sleeping in her own bed in her family’s halls has thankfully followed her past Glenmore and she is happy for it.

She is so glad, so glad to know that this place is still beautiful.

She pauses briefly for her thermos of tea. There is no cold like it, this far north. Her nose and cheeks are likely flush from her excursion, dewy and as rosy as her hair. The walk isn’t easy, her outdoorsy siblings would likely call it a gentle-stroll in only the way a Stark could, they relish the challenge and she welcomes the burn in her calves as she tackles another rise in the valley before it falls again.

Its easy to think here, so she does in abundance as she takes another bend, another curve in the treeline. She thinks of herself, not of her parents, her siblings, people she has hurt or those that have hurt her, not of Jon either, no matter how much longs to picture his kindness and beauty, to soak in the love he would so willingly bestow on her, if only she would let him. Instead she thinks of how she is doing and what she has been filling her heart and soul with.

She is writing a novel, her first ever. Sansa has written stories before, likely hundreds since she first took pen to paper as a girl, but nothing like this. Its different to everything she has had published so far, it isn’t about current affairs or heavily influenced by some hot-shot editor in his Saville Row three piece in the West End of London. This story is for her, by her, from her mind, from every thought she has ever magicked up and day-dreamed about. It’s a romance, of course, and that thought thrills her. She never would have dared to write anything like this six months ago. It’s a story the old _her_ would have adored, eating up every word to see if the young, would-be-lovers could finally see one another truly. It makes her glad to know that perhaps that little girl who had so much hope is still in there somewhere.

If she can only do one single thing this year, it will be to finish that novel. Come hell or high water she will do it.

She focuses back on her path, her dreams can wait to dusk. The sun is high above her now as the trees clear before her, opening up to the rocky peaks ahead, beautiful pines littering the banks that leads down to her destination. She climbs down the side in a hurry, far quicker than she should as she skitters from cobble to icy stone.

She reaches the waters edge, her rucksack slipping from her shoulder, thudding like a forgotten friend at her side, before she sinks to her knees and the first sob rips from her throat.

It’s a beautiful place, just as Sansa was once.

It was exactly as she remembered it, just as she had kept it stored safely in her heart, away from lions and monsters and beasts. An Lochan Uaine is unchanged, unlike the girl who once sat on the banks of the very same Loch all those years ago, on her fathers knee as he told her its tales and its secrets.

_It’s called the Green Loch, named so for its waters, emerald, jade and pear. They say the Loch gets the colour of its waters from the fairies that live in the trees, who come to the waters edge to wash their dresses and their wings. The water is full of their magic, its full of their dreams, and anyone who swims here will be blessed with their love and their luck._

She thought of her father’s words, that she had heard so many times in his heavy brogue of home as the first tears coasted her cheeks, leaving icy tide marks in their tracks. Her knees, on the damp earth, mud and sand and pebble are as wet as her eyes as she sinks her hand into the stony shore. Anchor, she is her anchor.

She cries softly to herself, not some wild, broken thing from months gone by, when she was found again, when she had to learn to be free. She cries for herself, but not for what has been done to her, not for her one-time confusion about the justice or injustice of Joffrey’s existence and treatment, she doesn’t cry for her pain or how she feels she has let anyone down. Those things are still there somewhere, she knows she is learning to live with them for a while yet, but they stay buried deep. So, she cries for the beauty before her, she cries because it doesn’t hurt like she thought it would, she feels happy, and she cries for her happiness.

Her tears are easily dashed, her sniffles easily remedied, fighting for her composure as she rifles through her rucksack, hunting her phone. In shaking bone china hands, she hits the familiar contact, his photo filling the screen like his warmth fills her soul.

“Please bloody pick up,” she murmurs to the water, still and steady before her.

“Hello?”

“Papa,” she exhales, tears burning anew as she grips her eyelids tightly shut against their attack.

Her father sighs, steady and still, his voice like scotch and hearth and home. She knows it has broken his heart, the constant and timely Ned Stark, that in the last five years, when she was treated so cruelly, so violently, so undeservedly, that she never called him, no matter how much she needed him. Yet, she needs him now, so she called him, and Ned Stark will never turn a lost wolf away.

“Oh _sweet-wren_.”

He hasn’t called her that in a long time. Not since before. Not since Joffrey kept her from her family, and certainly not since she returned to them, and she aches for that girl, the freckled and darling thing, an English Rose with a Scots heart, that sat on her fathers knee at this very Loch when he first named her sweet-wren, for the dainty auburn birds with their hearts full of song as they danced in the sky.

“Am I? Am I still your sweet-wren?” She begs.

“Always Sansa, you always will be. Are you safe?”

“Yes, Papa, I’m safe, I’m… I’m at An Lochan Uaine,” she breathes, her chest has steadied with the flow of tears that now mark cold and fragile on her cheeks.

Her fathers responding chuckle makes her smile. She feels like she is truly breathing, really breathing for the first time in an age, and its piercing and frozen, like the steal inside her as she sits in her favourite place in the world, in her fathers favourite place in the world, still his sweet-wren, still so very loved.

“Of course, you are,” he rumbles on, laughing gently to himself, “are you glad you came?”

“So glad, at first, I wanted to come because I thought it would hurt, I thought I needed to get through the pain first… but, but it didn’t. It feels… I feel, good… happy.”

She hears her father’s breath crackle down the phone, she can almost picture his shoulders, so tense and stoic dropping in relief, for what parent doesn’t want to hear that their child is happy?

“Darling girl, that makes me so glad. You should be happy, don’t ever think you don’t deserve that. Just look around you right now, every stone, the green of the water, the pines, it is full of your happiness, of your dreams, no one can take that from you, no matter how hard they try…”

Ned Stark was not a man of many words, never using ten words when one would do, every word was kindly given and meant, so she welcomed her fathers thoughts and her fathers love as she kneeled on the bank of the place that was so dear to them.

“You remember the story,” he continued, “of why the Loch is green?”

“I’ll never forget it,” she answered.

“The fairies have left their luck, their dreams and their love for you, sweet-wren. Put your hand in the water and take it.”

She did as he bid her. Skin of cream and honey, weak tea, chamomile and bone china, dipped into the green cavern of millennia aged stone and water, glittering on the sun of an old winter on a new day.

“Thank you, Papa,” she said, kissing her wet fingertips.

They were silent for a while, just the sounds of them breathing and different ends of the kingdom, both lost in thoughts, both likely about her, his worries, and her happiness that she was still that girl, older, absolutely, but still a romantic, still a dreamer for days to come. No one could kill that girl who had rested her head on her childhood pillow and waited, dormant, quiet like a wolf, until now, till it was safe to be that Sansa again.

“You should head back soon, before it gets too late…”

“Ok, it gets dark so early, and if I get lost and need the rangers to rescue me Robb will never let me live it down.”

Her father chuckled again, and it warmed her, chest and heart and soul.

“You know your way back home, don’t you sweet-wren?”

“Always, I’ll always come home.”

Another sigh. Another drop of tensed shoulders. He had meant Winterfell, but it was a promise she knew now that she could keep, so made it, sworn solemnly with the trees as her witness.

“I know Sansa, truly, I know that. I’ll see you in a week or so. Oh, and sweet-wren…”

“Yes, Papa?”

“We Starks, we endure.”

Goodbyes were said before the dainty, auburn bird with her heart full of song bid farewell to the Loch that she kept safely in her heart, she packed up her rucksack and rose, damp kneed, eyes red-rimmed and creased from both smiles and tears alike. She would be back, one day, to see the deep green pool of emerald, jade and pear once more, after she had dreamt new dreams and turned them to her reality. A novel? A family? A man with curls the colour of ink and eyes as grey as the sky before rainfall?

Time would tell. But she was hopeful.

She turned back once more, before reaching the path that would see her home, taking in the majesty and safety of the place she had so desperately sought out, in hope of preservation, of healing, of something she couldn’t name. She hadn’t needed to come here, in the end to find it. It was inside her, but she was glad she came all the safe. New dreams where born today, and old realisations that just like this place, perhaps she is beautiful too.

**Author's Note:**

> The Poor Wren, Will Fight series, has turned out to be a bit of a love letter to my favourite places.   
> First we had London, in its festive, glittering glory. Now I give you Scotland. 
> 
> I had a proud,Scottish grandmother, and it is very dear to me. The line in this fic "England is my heart, but Scotland is my peace" is something she used to say, often, and with love. 
> 
> In a comment from 'Christmas Lights' - someone mentioned how very British it was, and it may be helpful to explain some of details that may not resonate around the world, so I have given this a go, in all its anglophile majesty; 
> 
> The M25 - a ghstly motorway that circles the entirely of London. Avoid at all costs.   
> Boxing Day - the 26th December, the day after Christmas is a national holiday from us and we have another, blessed, day off, and laregely consists of more feasting and boozing, unless your insane and you go shopping in the sales.   
> Percy Pigs - the worlds greatest packet of sweets you could ever but from Marks & Spencers.   
> Stormzy - A London based Grime artist and all around perfection. 
> 
> I get a kick out of using Gaelic phrases, so there will be more of that. 
> 
> I hope you have enjoyed this as much I enjoyed writing it, I hope to update soon. I would love to hear what you think. Comments = bread and butter.


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